Who is Following you on Twiiter? Where did they come from? Did you Follow them back? Here is an interesting and revealing look at what goes on within the Dark Side of Twitter.
It always amazes me when I see some of my new Followers on Twitter.
I don’t really follow anyone until they follow me first. When I follow other people first, most of them just ignore me.
So I found it’s a lot smarter to follow people who actually have an interest in what I’m doing, and would like to interact with me on a personal level.
What I could never understand is how someone with Zero number of Tweets can have over 1,000 Followers.
Well, maybe I do understand.
A Bot goes out and Follows a zillion people, and many—if not most—will Follow them back without thinking.
It’s all about the Numbers, right?
Sometimes my new Followers will have a man’s name, but a woman’s picture as their Avatar. It’s usually some hot babe scantily clad. I never follow these people back, and they usually disappear from the Followers within a short time.
I thought it might be fun to post some screen shots of some of my new Followers from this week.
Our first example is very representative of the others. No tweets at all, but over 700 Followers. Note that she is following almost twice as many people. She is even included in 4 Lists! Note also, that Paula doesn’t even have a website.
Oh, wait. My mistake. Apparently Paula is actually Lelia.
Now this is getting confusing. It’s not Lelia, and it’s not Paula. It’s really April.
And if all that is not confusing enough, let’s take a look at descriptions. It would appear that Lisa and Paula have the exact same Bio. Who knew?
If you are interested, here is a portion of the Group. There are a lot more I didn’t show. If you look closely, you will see there is even more duplication, of both Avatars and descriptions, than I have already pointed out.
Needless to say, I didn’t follow any of these people. They all appeared at virtually the same instant, so I have no choice but to assume that they came from some “Service” that charges a fee for a specific amount of “guaranteed tweeter followers.”
When I look at who is following the people shown here, I did recognize some familiar faces of people I know and have seen commenting around town. No names will revealed to protect the, uhm, uh, well… you know who you are 
The Lesson in all of this is that you should never be too impressed when you see all those tens of thousands of “Followers” beside some Guru’s name. And the reverse of that, of course, is to never negatively judge someone without a slew of numbers to show off. Maybe the Tweeter with the small Following knows exactly what they are doing!
Related: 10 Kinds of People I don’t Follow on Twitter, by Ingrid Abboud
Now it’s YOUR turn
- Do you know who your Followers are?
- Do you just follow ANYBODY?
- Do you read the list of a new Follower’s tweets, and visit their website before you decide to Follow Back?
Leave me a Comment below, and let’s talk about your Twitter Strategy
Ha!
I love this post Rick. I think I’ve met Leila – well – we didn’t actually meet, but she may have tried lol. I’m noticing it more and more where I read the same profile over and over – it’s crazy.
And I don’t understand how these people are getting followers – I mean if you just took the time to look an see that there’s often no activity in their streams then you’d realize.
I’m actually like you – I usually wait for someone to follow me and then see if I want to follow them back – I’ve rarely gone out and started following someone without them coming over first – except of course Copyblogger and a couple of these folks.
I’m not saying that’s a good thing or anything – I really should make more of an effort to initiate the following but…
And yes – for some people it is about the numbers – but we know better than that right?
As for your questions – I wrote an entire post of why and how I follow people back on Twitter – it was GP I wrote back in October for FamousBloggers.net – it’s funny (obviously haha) but it’s very true.
I’ll send you the link if you want to read it.
Thanks for this enlightening piece Rick – I’ll make sure to keep on the lookout for Leila’s 16 personalities (you know – like Sybil’s lol).
Cheers Mr. LaPoint
Happy Saturday to ya my friend
Ingrid Abboud recently posted..YooHooo…I’m Over at the Danny Brown House!
You asked me to post something new, so I posted something fun
I have seen this phenomenon in the past, but when these all hit at the same time, it was so obviously some Spam company that they were just begging to be called out.
Plus, I needed some new material
, so the timing was perfect.
I have really been tempted to simply follow anyone who follows me (as long as they’re real) so I could build numbers fairly quickly. But always came back to the idea that they only follow me to build their own numbers, and will never actually follow or tweet. So why waste the time?
Most drop me if I don’t follow back in a few days, anyway.
What is a bit irritating though, are those I actually know, who build up a follow me-follow you, and then down the road unfollow virtually everyone so they appear to have a large following without the need for reciprocation at all. They are above the little people, after all [sniff].
Thanks for the great comment, Ingrid
Damn, and I thought all those hot chicks were diggin’ on my new big headshot for my Avatar.
I have learned enough to at least check to see how many tweets they have sent and what kind of tweets they send.
I do like to engage w/ people and at this point w/out having a blog there would not be an overwhelming interest to follow me other than I am human and probably will not try to sell you anything and I will respond.
I guess I could pimp my business, but I’m more interested in the dynamics of social media and looking for the interesting people. If it brings more followers then so be it; I don’t think it’s my end-all to have X number of followers.
I would like to hope my followers are at least comfortable w/ me and I’m not going to kill them w/ too many tweets or tell them how many times I go to Starbucks.
Baby steps, but I will figure it out.
Great post and some of this I thought I knew, and you just confirmed most of it.
Ha. Step away from the mirror and get some real work done
I don’t care how many followers I have as long as the ones I do have will interact.
But I follow-back anyone who seems serious, i.e. is actively tweeting, has a real website (no high-pressure, one page sales).
Although some of these people who follow me are so big and famous in their niche, it’s easy to tell they will never interact, but they fit my criteria as much as anyone else, so I follow back.
What a game
Thanks for stopping by Bill. See you on Twitter
I thought this little mini-case study Rick was a trip man. It’s funny when we actually take a deep look at our ‘followers’.
These days, I’m like you. If I don’t know ya, I’m not going to follow you. I was told when I first started Twitter to follow anybody and everybody. As you might imagine, this was so dumb, and I’m still cleaning up my list.
When it comes down to it, I just want relationships. Genuine. Real. Legit. Those are my goals with that little birdy these days.
Thanks for the smiles.
Marcus
Marcus Sheridan-The Sales Lion recently posted..Husband- Father- Blogger- Business Owner- A Sales Lion Close-Up
I don’t reject someone simply because I don’t know them, but they do have to be real, and active at what they do.
I agree totally about wanting relationships. I only have one List, and that is for the people I want to interact with. The others I follow out of politeness. But as soon as they interact with me, they go on my List too.
Thanks for stopping by, Marcus.
Haha. I love this.
Actually, I wrote about something similar recently (will link below).
As far as my Twitter “Strategy”, I do know some of my followers, but not nearly all of them. The biggest problem is that by the time I get around to talking to them, I find that they are not people (like those you show above), or they have given up.
As a result, I only follow people who have (1) a picture of a person as their avatar, and (2) over 100 tweets in the past couple of months, and (3) a website that is not spammy.
I do actually read my followers’ tweets, but only when I have time (early morning or late night). Otherwise, I stick with @mentions.
Love this stuff. Have a great day Rick!
mark recently posted..Finding Niche Ideas and Why I Love Naughty Emails
I have found that many who follow me, regardless of how legit they may be, are not at all interested in interaction.
They just want me to see their own tweets. Some will thank me if I retweet them, but they never return the favour.
I will probably change my Avatar to my picture. But the Little Dude is very recognizable, so it’s a double-edge sword.
I don’t really read any tweets except the Mentions, DMs, and the core List of my buddies.
Thanks for your input
Rick, aloha. As it turns out, Paula-Leila-April also followed me. Quite I honestly, I don’t remember whether or not I followed the triplets back, however, I definitely remember thinking “WOW! She sure looks familiar.”
Like you, Rick, on more than one occasion I have been amazed when I found someone had thousands, or even tens of thousands,of followers with nary a single tweet. Why on earth would you follow someone who doesn’t tweet?
Thx for the insights, comments and smiles. Aloha. Janet
Janet Callaway recently posted..How to Fish Your Way to More Contacts & Clients by Janet Callaway The Natural Networker
Since I’ve been doing the tweetie thing, I have been amused by these people.
It was obvious something phony was going on. Some I’ve seen have 10,000 followers and no tweets of their own. I wondered if they hacked into twitter and gamed the number
What’s fun is to see the familiar faces who followed them back
Thanks for coming by, Janet!
You know my motto Rick. Exposure of any kind can only lead to positive. It may sound stupid to build up those numbers without targeting specific types of followers, but to be realistic, you have to work with the culture. The culture in Twitter’s case is to have a ton of followers. That doesn’t negate the fact that one of those 10,000 followers may turn out to be a real person with genuine interest even if they are not in your niche or “desired demographic”. I have had the strangest followers turn into paying clients out of the blue.
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Hey Brandon,
I understand what you mean. As a pure numbers game, there may be a few “followers” who don’t interact, but may see your tweet(s).
I will follow-back anyone who is real. I just won’t follow some spammy person.
You input is definitely something to consider when making the decision.
Thanks for adding another dimension to the considerations
Hi Rick,
Good work on your research for that pretty avatars. Hehe
However, I may have little different idea.
Somehow, I think number is matter to get more and real followers.
For example, I am running my oil paintings site, my competition also running oil paintings. You are looking to buy oil painting and searching for good offers or good references via Twitter, you then find me and my competition, if I only have small hundred of followers while my competition have over 10 thousand, who will get your attention?
So, my method is to manage to get some good amount of followers, and then the real work begin (select who to follow).
Rose @ Samui Art Gallery recently posted..Salvador Dali and His Famous Painting “The Persistence of Memory”
You have an interesting viewpoint.
So far the discussion has pretty much been about “insiders” following each other.
I wonder how many customers actually do check us out on twitter. You do make a valid point, especially according to various social media experts who specialize the Twitter/Customer interaction.
Many of us get caught up in the tweet me-tweet you aspect and may forget the “outside” customer in all of this.
You and Brandon have similar arguments that are very valid
Thanks for your input!
Hi Rick
I so agree with you on the thousands of followers. I wonder how people with such huge numbers get to interact with said followers! Answer is they probably don’t in most cases.
When I suddenly get a spike in follower numbers I am always suspect. Especially cos I only follow people I know or those whose posts I want to go read on a consistent basis. Some disappear quickly when they realise I will not be following them back.
Have never wanted to play the numbers game and no-one has been able to convince me otherwise. So until then I will stick with having fewer numbers and interacting with “real” people
Thanks for sharing with us Rick. Enjoyed the read.
Patricia Perth Australia
Patricia@lavenderoils recently posted..Create Impact- Not Traffic Spikes
It really is all about your own personal goals.
Already in this discussion we can see various reasons for different strategies, and all are valid.
That is why some advocate the intelligent use of Lists. You can have zillions of Followers for that “social proof” but keep a small List for your own interaction.
BTW, I have always hated that phrase, “social proof.” Does it somehow connote, “Worth?”
Thanks for your input, Patricia
Absolutely hilarious Rick. When I first jumped on Twitter, I cared little and did exactly as you described. I simply followed because getting the big list was what was important. Eventually though I began paying attention and have seen a whole lot more than you describe here and that is when I became discriminating.
I did the same as you. And over time, I cleaned up the list.
Also, over time, I see that my early followers I followed back had cleaned me
“What the heck? Why am I still following these twits?”
So I cleaned those out, for sure.
Like most of those who chimed in, I’m still pretty much in the “small group of friends” category in how I use Twitter.
Thanks for your input!
Rick,
My new Twitter spammers were sexier than yours, “big” and blond. Plus I got some cute ones with oriental icons. It kills me that they aren’t even smart enough to send a different message.
I am getting good at hitting the block and report spam button.
Sheila Atwood recently posted..Speedlinking To Niche Websites on The Weekend Web
Ha! Now the contest gets ugly
I can’t simply try to rack up the numbers (excuse the pun) but now they have to be good looking, too.
Yes, I laughed when I got a bunch of those, “I’m Asian girl. Please follow me.”
At first I thought they were porn, or mail-order brides. But never could quit figure out their game. I think they are already gone when I didn’t follow back.
And yes, again. I hit that Block/Spam right away on those DMs.
Thanks for stopping by and making me feel inadequate. I’m off to the gym now to work on the pecs…
Now my ego has been deflated
I just culled 45 users I had been following who had zero tweets or hadn’t tweeted this week.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Michael
Michael Pedzotti recently posted..10 Steps to Internet Business Success Step 2 – Identify need
Ego is vastly over-rated
And if you need more, uhm, deflation, check Sheila’s comment above.
I check each and every new Follower to see what kind of website they have.
I will follow someone with no site, IF their tweets are truly worthwhile to my demographic.
Thanks for chiming in, Michael.
Rick,
Very funny! I love the screen shots of your new twitter followers. (I wish I had thought of doing that for a post.) I”m a lot like you in that I have a strategy for Twitter and I check out who I follow. I’m going for quality not quantity.
I don’t just follow people who follow me first. From reading this post, it may be a good thing. Otherwise, we may not be following each other on twitter.
I follow people 1st if they’ve posted an article that is so good that I’ve learned from it or want to share it with others.
One of my favorite twitter tools is JustUnfollow.com and since it’s been a while, I’m off to check it now.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Where Does Your Website Traffic Come From
Maybe people don’t follow me back if they don’t know who I am because of my Little Dude Avatar. But plenty follow me from out of nowhere. I’m not sure if they see the Twitter recommendations, or if it’s a program, or what.
I will be changing the Avatar soon, but I wanted a more “distinctive” picture. My current Avatar may be kooky, but it IS instantly recognizable. But as I have said in the past, the whole thing is a double-edge sword.
I do all my follow/unfollow manually. Maybe it’s because I have spent so many years in Tech that I don’t trust anything Automatic
Thanks for jumping into the conversation!
[...] Social Media: Phony Following Twits – by Rick LaPoint, internetmarketing.ricklapoint.com [...]
Great sleuthing. Not only are these people not tweeting or tweeting spam, a lot of them have really high Klout scores. And although some of them are good for a chuckle, it never ceases to amaze me . Of course the only way to weed these people out is to take the automation out of the following process. I do tend to follow anyone whose tweets/blogs interest me. As for people that follow me, I review them each individually to ensure that they are real and have something of interest to contribute.
Thanks for a funny and revealing post.
ronika recently posted..Its Bad Business to Let the Killer Get Away With It- The Sam Spade Guide to Better Business
Yes, I have never automated Twitter. I have been working with PCs since the days before the IBM PC (TRS-80 anyone?) and have always seen fully automated anything mess up, usually at the worst times.
We are pretty much on the same page about who we follow back.
Thanks for stopping by, Ronika.
Commodore Vic20. Friends dad designed and programmed arcade games “Robotron, Defender” and did a lot to try and get us into programming. The guy was prophetic. Told us if we started then and got serious we could be rich by our twenties. We did’nt listen. Kids can be so stupid;)
Sorry for the derailment….
Rick.. nice post. You need to look past the numbers whether they are big or small.
No matter if you have 50 followers or 50,000 you will not be able to engage with them all.
The goal is to engage with as many as you can, each day..
We are all here to meet and engage and build relationships and promote our blogs,.. thats is why we are all here “marketing” the ones that say different are full of shit.
Now if you only have 100 followers then you will have to work very hard to get a some of those to your site, if you have 10,000 you have a better chance to reach and move more people daily.
It is all about building that community and engaging with as many as you can and keep it growing every day.
Not about the numbers its about what you do with those numbers.
John Paul Aguiar recently posted..Follow Friday Favorites Week 3
Hi John,
Welcome to my corner of the world
I like what you say here, “The goal is to engage with as many as you can, each day..”
I try to engage each day, but I haven’t actively sought out as many as I had time for each day. That is definitely a failing on my part, and will work on that.
I totally agree it’s “what you do with those numbers.” And I like how you drive home how the interaction is all about getting people to your site. When I see the automatic DM show up with the canned message about coming to the person’s site, I usually don’t. I don’t respond well to automation.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi Rick :
Here I am. This is my first time on the Internet today, it was a busy Sunday.
I read your post, following, sounds like creating an image of double and triple life. Choose anyone you like, all free and available.
When I started tweeting, I had a list of followers, I used to write every one’s name twitter name, and site. Really, because I was serious about creating relationship.
Now, I look forward to getting a link and making them read my blog post. I read theirs too, if they have any. I also like to connect with bloggers and that is a real joy, as I know them more. That is my goal. I do get links some days, not every day.
You have done a good job with your post, it is sort of fun to read, and reminds of something important.
Look forward to read more from you.
Fran A
Fran Aslam From Onlinewriter recently posted..Most Blog Comments Take A Lot More Than Content Writing
Hi Fran,
I’m glad you thought this was fun. That really was the goal here
The idea was to be fun and silly, and get people smiling, because that is one way to get a lot of traffic!
The interesting thing about the interaction is that there are many twitter users than don’t seem to want to interact. There are those that are “too big” to bother with us “little people.” As people do engage with me, I add them to my one and only List, and a keep that as my main Stream.
Thanks so much for stopping by to comment.
Rick, this one is a great one. I had a post related to this and believe it or not, I posted a screenshot in it, of a user that has 66.207 followers and 2 tweets! I kid you not!
After reading The Tao of Twitter and learning a thing or two, I started not only blocking bots as soon as they spam me, but also block those bots who follow me! I don’t need numbers.
I followed back some real people/bloggers, tried engaging with them but no results. When I see someone like that, that just wanted a number (note – they followed first) I unfollow.
Brankica recently posted..Wanna play a game The contest is ON
I agree, if someone refused to engage, why bother following them.
But I can also agree with the idea presented by Brandon that you never know which of your Followers might end up seeking you out later for something important.
One criteria I use, which I haven’t yet mentioned here, is my daily Newspaper, The Daily Tweet, which automatically pulls tweets from those I follow and puts them altogether into a nice summary. I try to follow those who tend to tweet interesting things. If I won’t be embarrassed by what they put into the Paper, they are fine to follow.
I don’t follow a lot back that maybe I “should” but I just think they are Bozos
They usually drop me pretty quickly anyway because, as you say, they only want the numbers.
Thanks for your input Brankica.
This is such a comfort! Lately there’s been a lot of buzz about Twitter (again) on the blogs I frequent. It’s the quality vs quantity, and maximum exposure, and things like TeamFollow on Twitter, etc. I have around 130 followers, but they’re enthusiastic. However, according to all these pro bloggers I read, it’s “negative social proof” because my following is so small.
This post gives me comfort!
Delena
Delena Silverfox@Coupon Codes recently posted..Hostgator Coupon Code
Most of my “Followers” probably don’t even know who I am.
They don’t tweet, they don’t come by the blog. They ignore me if I tweet one of theirs posts.
I agree it’s better to have 130 Followers you actually know, and who interact with you.
It’s only “negative social proof” to an outsider. These so-call Pros know better.
I’m brand new to Twitter and was trying to figure out why these non-tweeting women with no profile and sometimes men’s names were following me. I’d already started blocking them but wondered if I was being paranoid. Then I saw your blog post.
Thanks! I’ll give them a few days to disappear on their own, but if they don’t, I’ll block them. My list of followers is tiny, but I like it better if they’re, oh you know, real people.
Thanks again,
Rachel
Rachel Cooper recently posted..Effective emails in the Age of Interruption
Hi Rachel,
Welcome to the site
Don’t worry about Phonies who Follow. They usually do no harm, they make you Numbers look better, and most disappear soon enough anyway.
One of my long time Followers is a dog. His tweets are about puppy type things, but he hasn’t tweeted for quite some time. He doesn’t bite, doesn’t require food, so I let him hang around.
Thanks for stopping by!
[...] Who are all those phony baloney tweeters out there? Rick LaPoint sorts out fact from fiction where fake twitter followers are concerned. Who are they? How do I know whether they are real? Should I follow them back and WHY are they so popular? If you’re like many business and marketing folks who have taken to the twitterverse in pursuit of real people to do business with, you’ll want to read this post about some of the phantoms that haunt the world of microblogging. Internet Marketing [...]
Hey Rick,
Thanks for sharing this wonderful article!
You are absolutely right to the core. I think we all get those phony followers. You should by no means follow them. I don’t care if they follow me, but I’m not going to follow them.
It doesn’t matter how many followers you have but, how interactive they are with you. You can have thousands of followers, but if they don’t interact with your tweets then they are completely useless.
People with smaller following counts can be more powerful than many guru’s with thousands.
Thanks again!
God bless,
William Veasley
Willaim Tha Great recently posted..You Got What You Ordered!
Yes, everyone gets these, but on this particular day I was hit by a couple pages of them all at once. It got me laughing, so I figured others would laugh, too.
I agree it’s useless to have mass Followings if people don’t interact. My attempts at talking with people who follow me are usually fruitless—they just want me as a Number.
I don’t know if they click on any tweets to read my articles, or not. If you read the comments here you’ll see that a few bring up the point that you never know, so having Followers can’t hurt. I agree with that aspect, but I just don’t follow many of them back.
In the case of this group though, they weren’t even real, it’s unlikely anyone behind this will read my stuff, and they will most likely drop away soon.
Thanks for stopping by to comment!
[...] to actually exist. I am sure you know the type, they are described admirably in this excellent article from [...]
Do I know who my followers are? No. Not really. Not a lot of them, anyway.
Do I follow ANYBODY? No. I used to, but no longer. To be honest, I followed a crap ton of people in order to get my follower number into the couple thousands, and then I stopped caring about how many followers I had. When you get the same number of retweets on a blog post with 200 followers as you do with 2000 followers, you know the number aren’t really starting to matter too much.
I’ve noticed the same thing you have; that often a bio or pic is the same as that of another Twitter user. And yep, they’re all attractive females. These days I don’t follow back unless I 1) know who the person is, or 2) they have a legit blog/site and seem like a real person.
Thanks for the interesting read, Rick!
Tristan recently posted..How to Dramatically Increase Your Blog’s Chance of Survival
I no longer care about how many followers I have. At first I did, just like everyone else. But each day I get new followers, and some I follow back.
Even so, even though I DM each one with an obviously custom message, most ignore me.
But my custom DM of thank you, using their name and whatever other personal tidbit that may apply is a good way find out quick who might actually be interested in interacting.
Thanks for stopping by, Tristan.
This was great – glad to know I’m not alone here! Typically, I get bombarded by profiles sans-bio but from random states across America (and of course, a picture of a very pretty woman).
Another thing I’ve noticed – I’ll be followed by several authors in a short time span. I wonder if they’re using this same mass twitter service as a sort of PR move??
I definitely don’t follow back the bio-less tweeps, though I may follow an author or two depending on their work… so perhaps in that case, this scheme quasi-works?
Hi Jane,
Welcome to my site
Yes, I am followed by NY Times best selling authors, blah, blah, blah. I assume it’s automatic. I only follow back because they are NY Times best selling authors, blah, blah, blah
I’ve come to the point where if people insist on following me to build their numbers, whatever, I’ll use them to build mine.
But I keep the core people I actually interact with in my one and only List, which is pretty short.
Thanks for stopping by, Jane.
Hi Rick,
I guess that’s the main problem when you follow only people that follow you first. Because most of those accounts are fake, like your example with Paula/Leila/April. And then you either waste time trying to figure out if they are or not fake, or you follow them because you can’t know for sure.
Because i’m sure there are people out there who actually know how to use those bots in a more efficient way.
When you follow someone first, i’m thinking you have higher changes to follow legit people.
Maria Pavel recently posted..Certified Nursing Assistant Practice Test
Most of the people I follow are people who follow me first, but I only follow real people, it’s just that they often are acting like fake people.
Or maybe these real people have delegated all of their activity to real robots
I have less success when I follow first. And that’s funny, because I see their stats and often see that they are following more than follow them, which indicates that they are actively seeking followers. Yet, they ignore me when I follow first.
It’s enough to give me a “Complex,” Maria! I may need therapy soon.
Thanks for stopping by.
At first I did follow just about everyone who followed me, but I soon realized that it was pointless to do that. Sometimes I’d follow someone and days later they’d have been removed from my list of followers, others never said anything at all or worse yet touted the same spammy style posts all day long.
Twitter definitely has a dark side to it and you really have to work hard at fine tuning your list of followers – admittedly I have to work harder at this.
John Davenport recently posted..Horror Fans – AMC Theaters Soon To Be Your Theater of Choice
Hi John,
Welcome to my little corner of the world
The thing that really irks me, is when people want me to follow them, so I do, then after they build up their follower base, they very quietly dump all of them.
I received an email awhile back from a Big Name who said he would follow anyone on his list if they would come and follow him. So I did. But after a time, when I checked those who I follow, behold, he had dumped everyone—several thousand followers. That made him appear to be a Guru, of course. Ha, I dumped him that moment.
A prominent SEO Guru recently did the same type of thing.
They want the Numbers to appear as though people grovel to them
That reminds me, there are a few I need to dump right now…
Thanks for stopping by
Hey Rick… I just found you through Blokube. How funny I did a similar article on my blog. I call them “bot mama’s” and Stepford Wives. All of my bot mama’s had a name and a 4 digit number. Drove me nuts till I realized all I had to do was block them. Now I see they’ve started up a new handle… first name, last name, street address, 0 tweets. So predictable!
Dahlia Valentine recently posted..646 Pageviews and 53 Click Thru’s My Traffic Experiment with SlideShare
Hi Dahlia,
Welcome to my site
Ha! “Bot Mama’s” – I like that.
I don’t block them, or any other followers. At least for me, they have done no harm, and they drop off on their own soon enough anyway.
Thanks for stopping by
My goodness, we must have been channeling each other because I wrote on the same topic at almost the same time, and said some of the same things you did. I also mainly have people follow me first and then take a look at them, as well as how often they talk to other people and say more than “thanks for the RT”; what’s the point in that? And so many of these accounts are fake that I don’t even bother checking the obvious ones.
Mitch Mitchell recently posted..Better Blogging- Part Deux
Hi Mitch,
Thank you for stopping by
You bring up an interesting point, as have a few others, about how we all seem to get around to the same topics as everyone else, sooner or later.
In this case, I was simply looking for an idea for something fun and silly, as those types of posts tend to bring great traffic levels. And just at the right time, all of these phonies hit. So I really had no choice but to run with it
The real key to common subject matter is our ability to make it original in some way.
And failing that, to Market it better than anyone else
Or as Bill Gates told Steve Jobs when Jobs said the Mac was better than Windows, “I doesn’t matter.”
Thanks to SusanLorelei for her tweet of The Top 10 Blog article that listed your article…Phew! Sometimes I get dizzy on Twitter.
Anyway, I was thrilled and relieved to read this article and find out that I’m not the only person who is careful about who I follow.
No I do not follow everyone who follows me and yes I read someone’s tweets and check out their website before I follow them. And yes I find myself sometimes agnozing over whether or not I should follow someone – I think it’s the old high school popularity syndrome, despite the fact that I am…ahem…a long time out of high school.
And sometimes I do follow accounts that are a bit spammy, like the ones that seem to just be set up to get you to a website covered with Google Adsense ads. Mainly I do for fodder for my own very young blog.
Say I see one of the spammy sites from my industry post something like, “Make Your Own Solar Panels for Cheap”. I read through what they write (usually very little), and then create a blog debunking the spam/myth. I will admit I get more pleasure out of doing that than I probably should.
I too prefer to have a smaller following but have (mostly) people who are real and genuine and who share information and tidbits that I find useful and interesting. Thanks for helping me feel better about “opting out” of the Twitter spam movement.
Hi Alana,
Welcome to the Site
I don’t really care about the “Numbers” but I will follow back anyone who is real, and is serious about what they are doing.
But most of them will never interact with me, or Retweet. THEY just want the Numbers
That’s way I keep only one List, and that is for my friends—those I interact with. My numbers keep growing, which is fine. But I really don’t care about that. Some may follow and stay, simply because they really DO want to see my Tweets
It can happen 
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment! There’s good stuff here, so be sure to come back
It’s around $150 for a few thousand followers i think
I usually avoid twitter followers at looking at someone’s status, i’m more interested in how many times they’ve been put in others lists. That’s much more valuable in showing if they are legit.
Hi Peter,
That’s an interesting point about how many Lists a Follower has been included. I agree, that is important, and something I have looked at.
But there were times I suspected being included into lists was somehow Automated. Not sure about this at all.
Do you have any thoughts/experience in this regard?
Maybe I’m simply being too paranoid
Thanks for your input Peter – always appreciated
[...] Do you have more to add? For more on this subject, I recommend reading Rick LaPoint’s article “Social Media: Phony Following Twits” where he reveals the “darker side of [...]
Well, it had been worth mentioning and here you’ve done it. As bots had been epically used to flood orkut scrapbooks, the era has now come for twitter. I have seen bots that let you create hundreds of profiles in one go and similarly, thousands of scraps in another. Its all about fooling people that you are popular.
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[...] Rick LaPoint only dates his wife or at least that’s what he told me when I asked if he dates his blog posts. [...]
Hi, Rick.
LOL, I love your example of that Twitter follower with lots of names. Being new in the blogosphere, I am also a new user of Twitter and Facebook. So, your article really called to me.
I don’t know if I did it right but when I started with my Twitter account, I followed people in the 3D rendering, architectural, real estate and business fields. Then, once I figured I already followed an okay amount of people, I started changing my tactic and followed people whose blogs I have also been following.
Am I doing it right? I followed you because Patricia’s your friends and I like her.
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Hi Rick,
Thanks so much for sharing this! Now I don’t feel so bad about not having a ton of followers. I actually do know who most of my followers are, and that’s pretty easy since I don’t have a lot of them. I do follow back the ones I know.
It seems that women really ARE capable of accomplishing many things at once. LOL
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it’s easy to spot the so called “fake” follower accounts, they just have a large following and a close to equal number of twitter accounts they follow…
There are tools out there to create spam account very easily, but i guess that topic is for another article;)
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